


To Make Us Smile

by luninosity



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) RPF
Genre: Baking, Cake Frosting, Comfort, Commitment, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Love, M/M, Past Abuse, past self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-31
Updated: 2012-10-31
Packaged: 2017-11-17 10:51:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/550759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Birthday fic for girlinventor, who requested fragile!James (past abuse), cuddly boys, cake frosting, and comfort—and this is pretty much all of the above!</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Make Us Smile

**Author's Note:**

> Title and opening lines from Blue October's "Calling You," which I love.

_I thought that the world had lost its sway (it's so hard sometimes)_   
_I fell in love with you (then came you)_   
_and you took that away_   
_it's not so difficult (the world is not so difficult)_   
_you take away the old_   
_show me the new_   
_and I feel like I can fly when I stand next to you_

 

Michael walks in the door to the sound of water splashing, a glittering chorus of welcome.

James must be doing the dishes, he thinks, which explains one thing, namely why James hasn’t heard him come in, but raises a few other questions, for example why James is doing the dishes now, in the middle of an otherwise relaxing evening, with no music playing even though James always flips the radio on or plugs in his iPod or just sings out loud when he’s in the kitchen, a soundtrack for whatever he’s doing, baking or tidying up or tossing groceries into the accommodating fridge.

He drops his bag next to the door—he’ll get it later—and takes the few steps toward the well-lit room and tries not to worry as he does. James is _here_ , obviously. Doing chores. And the door was locked from the inside, and it’s not like anyone’s broken in and spirited him away in the midst of scrubbing pans.

But. _But_.

He walks into the kitchen and James, framed by a few desolate bowls and spoons, is washing a knife, not a large one, but sharp; he _might_ be washing a knife, or he might be looking at it with a tilt to his head that makes Michael go cold all over, instantly.

Or Michael’s imagining that look, that stillness, because it vanishes a second later, as freckled fingertips reach for more dish soap; but he’s already in motion, running across the tiled floor, and James spins around at the noise and takes a step back, eyes wide, dropping everything into the sink with a clatter.

“James,” Michael says. Not imagination, then. And his hands shake, when he holds them out. “It’s only me, I swear, I didn’t mean to—are you all right, I’m sorry, I love you.” And he thinks, desperately, please. Please say yes. Please smile at me.

He knows better than to reach any closer, to try to touch James without permission. He knows about old scars, past wounds, instinctive reactions. He does try to be careful. To keep either of them from witnessing fear in those blue eyes.

He wants so badly to touch anyway—I’m here, I’m real, I love you—and so he leaves his hands outstretched between them, a compromise, an offering, all he can do.

James looks at those hands. Then up, at Michael’s face. Breathes in, and smiles. Not a large smile, but an honest one, corner of that mobile mouth lifting up. And James takes a step forward, and rests his fingers over Michael’s.

“I’m all right. Now. You’re here. Just—can you please—”

“Of course.” When he tugs, gently, James comes willingly into his arms; lets Michael hold him, breathing softly against Michael’s neck and shirt collar, eyes closed because James isn’t thinking, now, about anything else, only allowing himself this moment of feeling loved.

The overhead lights’re very kind, pale golden-white glow wrapping them up in hushed quiet. The water keeps running, reminding them with every sparkle and leap that they’re not alone. The air, and James’s skin and hair and sweater, taste a little like dish soap, and wetness, and warmth. Michael runs a hand over his back, feels James sigh and relax a bit more at the motion, and kisses him in reply, one quick undemanding touch of lips to the top of that head. James smiles, again. Michael can sense the movement. His shivering heart lets itself be, cautiously, comforted by that.

“Do you want to tell me?”

“Um…I think so, yes. I’m not—it wasn’t—” James lifts his head, meets Michael’s gaze for a second, then settles back onto the supportive shoulder. Which is fine. Sometimes James feels like looking at him; sometimes not looking is easier, and Michael will never ask for more than James is able to give.

“It was…can I do this in reverse order, maybe? I think that’s simpler.”

“However you want. Anything you want. I’m here.” He touches the closest cheek, lightly, a reminder; James leans into his weight a bit more securely, puts arms around him in return. Letting Michael know that he’s still here, too. Better, Michael thinks. Not repaired, not yet, but better.

“All right, then. The dishes…I was trying, and failing, to bake a German chocolate cake. For tomorrow. Because you’re supposed to be home tomorrow. Which…wait, you _are_ supposed to be home tomorrow, how—”

“We finished shooting—all my scenes, anyway—a day early. They said I could go. So I got an earlier flight. I kind of miss you, you know, when you’re not around.” This gets another smile, and a sound that’s almost a laugh. Good.

And he hopes, maybe, possibly, James has somehow heard the other words inside those words, the ones he doesn’t say aloud, about the way he _would_ miss James, about the endless hole that’d take the place of his heart inside his chest, if James were ever…not around.

“I know. I miss you, too. I suppose that explains the second thing, then.”

“What—”

“I tried to call you. Earlier. You must’ve been in the air. I was feeling…after today’s scenes…no, not yet. Back to the cake. I ran out of flour. Of all things. I’d already made the frosting, too. And it was so stupid, and I just felt—I was doing the dishes so I wouldn’t have to look at them looking at me anymore. And you hadn’t answered your phone, and I was…” That ordinarily splendid voice catches, briefly. Jagged edges of broken gold, caverns yawning perilously beneath the ocean surface.

“You were feeling alone,” Michael whispers, and holds him a bit more tightly. “I know. I’m sorry.” He should’ve called. Should’ve said something, before leaving, before being unavailable when James needed him.

“It’s fine,” James murmurs, into his shoulder, “now. I know you were trying to surprise me. To come home. And I wasn’t—what you were thinking—with the knife. I wouldn’t. I won’t. I promise.”

“You don’t have to—I mean, if you can’t—do you mean that?” Breathless, all at once. James is promising him this. Has never said those words, not exactly those words, ever before.

“Yes.” James looks up at him again, and doesn’t look away, this time. “I do. I was thinking, actually, when you walked in, that I should tell you that. It’s not…this might not ever go away. Those thoughts. Not completely. But I don’t need to—to do that, either. I don’t _have_ to. I can…talk to you, instead, maybe. Because you’ll listen.”

“I’ll always listen.” Always. He can’t make this magically right, can’t go back and change the past, can’t take away the hurt and the abandonment and the people who’d convinced James of his own worthlessness, voices out of the past that nevertheless occasionally shouted loudly enough to tear open veins beneath freckled skin and make James bleed, spilling loneliness and despair into the world, as if the flood of red might carry all the pain away.

It would, of course. Decisively so.

He’d asked once, not the first time but the time after that, after he’d realized, one hand wrapped around James’s arm and no-longer-white bandages, slippery redness staining his fingers and the sink and coloring the world. Had demanded to know why, since when, since _whom_ , whether James honestly wanted to die and what the fuck he thought Michael would do in the aftermath other than die too, by inches, every day.

James’d looked up at him, shocked, eyes very blue in that white face. Had shaken his head, and whispered a denial, weary, astonished: “I don’t want you to die for me, I’m not—”

“Not what? Not worth that? Fuck that, James, you’re better than that, you’re better than this, you deserve better, I love you!” In the wake of the following hush, he’d been more afraid than he’d ever been in his life, then or since.

James had looked at his arm, at Michael’s hand, clamped around his wrist, holding on, holding him _together_ , and then looked up, and swallowed, shakily. “You…did you just tell me you loved me? Here? Now? In a hotel bathroom, while I’m bleeding, on the floor?”

“I fucking love you anywhere!”

“I,” James said, and drew a breath, let it out, made a sound that wanted to be a laugh but came out wondering and amazed, “I think this is absurd enough that I might have to believe you…”

“James,” he’d said, still holding on, finding sapphire eyes with his, “I love you.”

“Michael,” James’d whispered back, “I love you, too.”

Stitches. Literal and metaphorical. Sutures over vicious wounds. Later, in his arms, James had said other words. Admitted stories Michael would’ve never guessed at, behind the coruscating smile, the exuberant laughter so faultlessly displayed to the world. A father, never coming home one day, leaving behind an inheritance of silence and blue eyes, one pair, a uniquely spectacular hue. Questions, once James was old enough to ask them, but no answers.

Aimlessness. Drifting. Religion, and how proud his grandparents’d been when he’d been an altar boy. How mutely, deadly furious they’d been the day that James’d realized why he could never be a priest. James, young and defiant and heartbroken, had gone out and let himself be fucked by the first man who’d taken him for a prostitute, standing alone under a streetlight in the rain.

“I didn’t know anything,” James’d said, lying curled in Michael’s arms, in the center of their bed. It’d been raining then, too. The world weeping along. Catharsis for them all. “I only wanted someone to want me. That’s all. No one ever—at least if it was sex, they wanted me for that, for those minutes, for the minutes when I meant something to them, even if I was just someone to fuck. That was something I could do.”

“James—”

“I stopped. After someone—more than one someone, actually, word was getting around that I liked it rough, and I did, but not that rough, I—”

“They hurt you.” For the first time in his life, Michael’d wanted to kill another man.

James’d held out his arm, not the bandaged one, the other one, skin pale and smooth, except for where it wasn’t. “You know I have scars. You never asked.”

“You said they were from film stunts…”

“Oh. These are, yes. And the knee, but you know about that. But these…” Small circles. Not large. Silvery-white, and easy to miss. “There’re a few more. Other places.” An edge of gallows humor, tinting that landscape-painting voice. “Why I can’t smoke cigarettes anymore, in fact. Memories. There’re other things I could tell you, but that’s probably the worst part. Or at least I remember that hurting the most.”

He’d not been able to talk. Had only taken James’s offered hand in his, skimmed his fingertips over long-healed skin, touches like tears, like outrage, like a promise. “I’ll never hurt you.”

He’d given up cigarettes, mentally, on the spot. Decision made. No debate necessary. No debate at all.

James’d glanced at him, curious, the next time they’d gone out drinking, when after a pint or two Michael hadn’t reached for the pack. Had started to ask, then stopped, and smiled, and taken his hand.

“I know you won’t. You—well, you _are_ a good person. The best person. I’m not—I’ve never been afraid you’ll hurt me. That isn’t why.”

“You…think you’ll hurt me? James, I love you. You won’t hurt me by staying. You’ll only hurt me if you leave.”

Now, in the present, holding James again, he can feel that heartbeat, inches below his own, compact body pressed up against him as if enough closeness can battle the shadows away. Can feel the words, too, sweet Scottish rumble radiating throughout both their bodies when James speaks, when James makes those promises, words Michael’d never expected to hear him say.

They _are_ better, now. They’re better than they’ve ever been.

So he says all the words again, the way he’d said them then, as inarguably true as they’ve always been: “I love you, you know. Anywhere. Always.” And James smiles, here and now, obviously remembering.

“I know. And I love you. Anywhere, always. The first thing…what started this, really, was filming, today. More accurately, watching some of the footage, at the end of the day. Of me. Being him. This role. He—I—he’s honestly an awful person.” James pauses to breathe, to glance away, to position himself more securely in the circle of Michael’s arms. Around them, the appliances, the table, the stack of drying dishes—everything they’ve bought and picked out together—breathe too, in and out, and lean in supportively.

Michael waits; he knows that James will keep talking, and James does. “He…me playing him…reminded me of someone. That I used to—know. Back then. And I realized…that’s what I was doing, what I was putting into that character, everything I used to see in—in that person’s eyes, when he picked me up, when I let him—I had to go home. Everyone was congratulating me on the performance and I couldn’t—I spent half an hour trying to throw up everything in the universe, I think, after I first got here. That was when I tried to call you.”

“I’m sorry. I should’ve told you what I was doing. I know you aren’t—you needed me to be here. To answer the phone. I’m so sorry.” He runs a hand through James’s hair. “What do you want to do? Do you want to drop out of the film? You can, it’ll be fine, we’ll just tell them it’s my fault, I can’t go weeks without seeing you, I need you with me when I’m filming, okay? I’m very needy, when it comes to you. Incredibly needy.”

James does laugh, this time. “You’d do that?”

“If you want, yes. Whatever you want to do. I’ll be there with you.”

“I know you will.” James stretches upward, kisses him, leaves Michael startled and delighted and suddenly warmer, head to toe. “And thank you. Not only for that. About the film…I don’t know. It’s good. It’s a good film. And it’s a challenge. I can’t play young and earnest forever…”

“It doesn’t have to be this film. There’ll be others.”

“I love you. I think…I’ll be all right. If I can…if I have you. To talk to. It was only…I’d not seen any of the footage before. It surprised me. Off-balance. But now I know, so I think I can handle it. Just…”

“…stay here? Keep you balanced? I can do that.” He slides his hands along James’s shoulders, biceps, down to familiar and beloved elbows, back up. Promises, truthfully, “Even in earthquakes,” and sees the flash of smile, banishing a few of those old ghosts back into intangibility, where they belong.

“Earthquakes? Seriously?”

“Very seriously. I’d be right there keeping you safe from falling rocks and houses and, um, lava. Or something. All right, I know that’s volcanoes, you can stop laughing…”

“…really not sure I can. But thank you again.”

“I love you.” He cups James’s face in his hands, brushing freckles with appreciative fingertips, thumbs sweeping over soft skin and ginger stubble and lingering merriment. “Did you say you’d made cake frosting? Before I got here?”

“Yes, why—”

“Over here? This bowl?”

“…yes? Still asking why, you understand.”

“Because this.”

“That’s my _nose_.”

“And now your nose tastes like coconut and chocolate. Delicious.”

“So…you’re planning to eat cake frosting for dinner, are you?”

“I’m planning to eat cake frosting off of you for dinner, yes.” This time he pushes up James’s sleeve, past the elbow. Uses one finger to paint a tempting line of sugar along that forearm. Sweetness, over faded scars. And then bends down and licks, tongue sliding over confetti-freckles and coconut, tasting every last atom of skin, lingering even after he’s nibbled that arm clean of dessert-food decoration.

He does love the way James tastes, after all. The coconut is an added bonus.

“Michael,” James says, a little unevenly.

“What? I love your cake frosting. I love it when you bake things. For us. And I definitely love you.” He’s kissing James’s index finger, now. Pulls it into his mouth, caresses, employs a bit of suction, a promise; James’s next inhale sounds belated, like the air’s an afterthought. Michael grins. Bites down, lightly, and hears the gasp.

“You—”

“Me? What about me, James?” He’d stop in a second, if those ocean-wave eyes showed true dismay. But they don’t and James isn’t really arguing, not when he lets Michael pin him in place against the counter, longer legs and arms and height so useful in that regard, and kiss him again, this time long and drawn out and exquisite, until James shivers all over and clings to Michael’s shoulders, a little helplessly, panting, in the aftermath.

“Were you talking, then?”

“I…don’t remember. Do that again? Please?”

“Maybe. Or I could do this…” He slips one hand up under the hem of James’s worn t-shirt, soft and fuzzy from years of washing. Finds warm skin, just waiting for his touch. Then finds a waistband. A zip. And suddenly James isn’t wearing jeans anymore.

“Hey!”

“You didn’t notice what I was doing?”

“I was—you were—you distracted me! I thought you’d want me in the bedroom, I could—”

“I want you here. And you don’t have to do anything. Just…stay right there, all right?” He trails a hand along the sturdy line of one thigh, chasing freckles; James blushes, adorably, and opens his mouth again, so Michael doesn’t give him time to protest. Only drops to his knees and presses lips to sensitive skin, where all that want’s becoming rapidly evident.

James gasps, when Michael kisses him there; wobbles slightly on his feet, and Michael pauses to say, into the pale line of one leg, “Hands on the countertop, please.” He doesn’t want James toppling over, after all.

James blinks, and then reaches back and holds on, not speaking up. That means something, too; he knows that one, the way that James listens to soft-voiced commands, _wants_ to listen, wants to give everything when Michael asks. James would trade places with him instantly, would kneel down and slide his lips over Michael’s cock and let Michael take his mouth, if asked.

They’re not doing that. At least not now. Now he needs to show James in all possible ways how beautiful he is, how glorious, and how excited Michael is to see those bright eyes every single day. If that means pushing slightly against the boundaries of that comfort zone, convincing James to accept sometimes and not give, then that’s what they’ll do.

Besides, he means the words, when he tells James again how much he wants this. He does.

James’s cock is heated and gorgeously flushed in his hand, against his lips. When he licks the entire length, base to tip, it jumps and quivers, eager. When he draws the whole of it into his mouth, one swift movement, James groans, and Michael tastes a drop of wetness, saltwater and sweetness over his tongue. He wants to smile, but also doesn’t want to stop, and the second desire wins out, and desire is absolutely the appropriate word.

James is whispering his name, now, over and over, as if the repetition’s something magical, an incantation, a charm to bind them more closely together; Michael lifts his head, kisses that aching tip, murmurs, “Love you,” and then goes back to what he’s been doing, in earnest this time. Not slow or teasing or languid, now.

That left knee shakes, and Michael wraps a hand around it: support, comfort, a brace, if necessary. Standing, for this, for James, isn’t the easiest, he knows. James never has explained precisely what that injury’d been, on the _Wanted_ set, which means it was bad and he knows it was; but Michael doesn’t need to ask, because he’s seen the aftereffects of a long day of filming, and he knows, too. James doesn’t complain because James never complains, and Michael does his best to ensure that James never has to.

He’s not going to leave James here, like this, for long. Just long enough.

He strokes his tongue more firmly over all that arousal, harder motions, faster, messier, wetness from both of them, and puts his other hand on James’s hip and pulls him even deeper, and James gasps again and pushes forward, obviously unthinking. Perfect; so Michael does it again, feeling James inside him, that heat and fullness and imminent loss of control, and James comes crying out his name, practically a scream, forgetting to be hesitant or self-effacing in the cloudburst of ecstasy.

In the wake of it, he breathes, against one slick thigh, “Now you taste like cake frosting here, too,” and James chokes on laughter, or tears, or breathlessness. “Michael—”

“Yes?” He stays on his knees, for a second, looking up. He doesn’t get to look up at James all that often, and it’s a sight worth seeing: eyes like oceans, all lit up and jewel-warm with the afterglow; disheveled hair, pink cheeks, breathing hard and collapsed bonelessly against the assistant countertops.

But that leg trembles one more time and he’s not going to let James fall, so he unfolds his own knees and gets to his feet and gathers James back into his arms, and, yes, James is crying, just a little bit, but he’s smiling, also, sunlight through rain.

Michael considers this for a moment, and then pulls off that last scrap of interfering clothing, tossing the shirt to the floor, and picks James up in both arms.

This earns a yelp of protest, at which point Michael says, meaningfully, “ _Very_ needy when it comes to you,” and James mock-scowls, but puts his head on Michael’s shoulder. Then squirms upright again. “Wait!”

“Not putting you down. Yet.”

“No—I mean, yes, you should, I’m not exactly insubstantial, and I’m fine—but really I just meant the water!”

“…what?”

“In the sink!” James says, “I was doing dishes—!” and then starts laughing, exhilarated, exhausted, lovely, beloved.

Michael, laughing helplessly too, attempts to maneuver them around so that James can reach over and smack the faucet until it stops producing water, and then ends up letting James half-slide out of his arms anyway as he tries to regain stability after.

“Sorry!”

“I’m fine,” James says again, and smiles. Takes his own weight, presses their bodies together, runs a not at all tentative hand along the front of Michael’s pants. “And so’re you. Bedroom? Or here?”

“Um…bedroom…you should…I want you to be…comfortable…” He’s distracted by the hand. It’s doing very interesting things.

“Hmm.” James studies his face, briefly, then grabs his hand, and tugs.

“Sofa?”

“It was closer than the bed.”

“I love your logic.”

“I love you,” James says, into Michael’s ear, while the industrious hands strip off cooperative clothing. “Come here.”

“We don’t have—don’t move, don’t go anywhere—!” He breaks a few speed records sprinting into the bedroom. More, on the way back. James pushes himself up on an elbow and smiles, hair standing up joyously, framed by the happy couch cushions.

“Like this? Or do you want me to move, and be on top of you?”

He honestly just wants to be inside James, right that second, before he explodes. His cock throbs at the thought, with the sensation of all that naked skin, sliding against his.

“I—you—lie down. Please.” He’s got enough desperate presence of mind for that. James has tired legs. James doesn’t need any more stress. Nothing that might hurt, not ever.

Blue eyes dance as if they know what Michael’s thinking, and James stretches out across the length of the sofa, somehow abrupt and graceful all at once, and then lifts a hand and beckons him, grinning, teasing now, cheeky and impatient.

“I love you,” Michael informs him, and moves, and when he finally sinks home James breathes out, like the release of all the tension in the world. “I know you do.”

“You’re beautiful.”

“I am n—oh!”

“Yes, you are. All of you.” When he leans down to kiss parted lips, this time, the summer-sea eyes sparkle up at him, in dreamy welcome; and Michael can’t help moving again, can’t wait, can’t hold back now, but James is right there with him, opening up for him, matching every slide and thrust of hips, and they fall into rhythm together so fluidly, so quickly, so easily, the way they’ve always done, and Michael plunges into him once, twice, three more times, and that’s it, he’s falling over that precipice into white heat, as James gasps and tightens arms and legs and muscles around him, bringing him home.

After a while, he sits up again. Eases them both into a slightly more comfortable position on the heroically stalwart couch. “Love you,” James yawns, half-awake and pliable, and settles down contentedly into his arms.

“Love you, too. Is this all right?”

“Perfect…”

“Yes.” Michael picks up the nearest hand in his. It’s the arm with the scars. But that’s not the most important part. The most important part is the way that, when Michael squeezes his fingers, James squeezes back, and doesn’t let go.

“Like balance,” James says, drowsily, into his shoulder. “Through all the earthquakes. And the lava.”

“Through the volcanoes,” Michael concurs. “And the German chocolate cake frosting.”

“With the volcanoes? I’m not certain those belong together…”

“James,” Michael says, “you belong here. With me. And I—”

“You belong here, too. With me,” James says, and kisses him, feather-light but sure and incontrovertible, lips sealing the promise into Michael’s skin and bones and heartbeat forever. “I know.”


End file.
